How Would You Describe These Figures?
5 min
Narrative
This Warm-up prompts students to generate formal and informal geometric language (lines, points, straight, curved), which will be used in an upcoming task, by familiarizing themselves with a context and the mathematics that might be involved in the task.
When students articulate what they notice and wonder, they have an opportunity to attend to precision in the language they use to describe what they see (MP6). They might first propose less formal, or imprecise, language, and then restate their observation with more precise terminology in order to communicate more clearly.
Launch
- Groups of 2
- Display the image.
- “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
- 1 minute: quiet think time
Teacher Instructions
- “Discuss your thinking with your partner.”
- 1 minute: partner discussion
- Share and record responses.
Student Task
What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Sample Response
- There are different colored lines.
- All the points form a circle.
- The lines start at one point and end at another point.
- The lines are straight but go in different directions.
- The lines make a circle in the middle.
- How are the straight lines making a circle?
- Are any of the lines curved?
Activity Synthesis (Teacher Notes)
- “Which words or terms came up multiple times in the observations you made and in the questions you had?” (point, line, straight)
- “We’ll work with these geometric features in this lesson and in upcoming ones. Let’s see what we can find out about them.”
Standards
- 4.G.1·Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figures.
- 4.G.A.1·Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figures.
25 min
15 min
Knowledge Components
All skills for this lesson
No KCs tagged for this lesson
How Would You Describe These Figures?
5 min
Narrative
This Warm-up prompts students to generate formal and informal geometric language (lines, points, straight, curved), which will be used in an upcoming task, by familiarizing themselves with a context and the mathematics that might be involved in the task.
When students articulate what they notice and wonder, they have an opportunity to attend to precision in the language they use to describe what they see (MP6). They might first propose less formal, or imprecise, language, and then restate their observation with more precise terminology in order to communicate more clearly.
Launch
- Groups of 2
- Display the image.
- “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
- 1 minute: quiet think time
Teacher Instructions
- “Discuss your thinking with your partner.”
- 1 minute: partner discussion
- Share and record responses.
Student Task
What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Sample Response
- There are different colored lines.
- All the points form a circle.
- The lines start at one point and end at another point.
- The lines are straight but go in different directions.
- The lines make a circle in the middle.
- How are the straight lines making a circle?
- Are any of the lines curved?
Activity Synthesis (Teacher Notes)
- “Which words or terms came up multiple times in the observations you made and in the questions you had?” (point, line, straight)
- “We’ll work with these geometric features in this lesson and in upcoming ones. Let’s see what we can find out about them.”
Standards
- 4.G.1·Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figures.
- 4.G.A.1·Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figures.